“working creatively”..thats the best euphemism ive heard for mass bribery.
and im tired of your various incarnations spouting this “you cant expect iraq to be a perfect jeffersonian democracy” garbage..EVERY indicator is that iraq will not remain a democracy, imperfect or not, and will instead transform into an inslamic theocracy…you DO realize that democracy can transform into some other form of government, right? you DO realize that the spirit of cooperation necessary for democracy to work shows absolutely no signs of taking hold, right?

Iran had a democractically elected government before we overthrew them and installed the Shah. Palestine has a democractically elected government. How far along the path to your allegedly inevitable “jeffersonian democracy” are they?

The irony that reagan and rumsfeld were an accessory to these kurds murder escapes you. Please explain why the logic that saddam was the lesser of two evils no longer applies to day?

> Everybody agrees that things are much better.

where the political progress the surge was supposed to buy time for?
and do you approve of us making millionaires out of sunni chieftans who were formerely responsible for attacks against us?

Comment by Exley

A simplistic version of what’s really happening – but then what else is Exley good for?

Comment by Exley — November 20, 2007 @ 11:50 am

Again, horrific story. But post your G-D links to these stories!

Comment by Exley — November 20, 2007 @ 11:10 am

Once again with the “cherry picking.” Post the whole article, not just the parts you like.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7089168.stm

What was Rumsfeld prediction of the cost of the war, and that it would be paid for by oil profits, yeah good call you pathetic old man.

Sell crazy somewhere else.

Comment by rocks911 — November 20, 2007 @ 10:53 am

rocks911 – Cheney became CEO of Halliburton. Mucho money (and he still has stock options and deferred salary); the prediction about Iraq being able to pay for anything with their oil was for reconstruction, and that was Wolfowitz. Rummy said we’d only be there no more than 6 months, with a very lean military, and that “freedom is messy” when the insurgency erupted. So a recap: greed, rationale driven by ideology, and plain stupidity. But the incredible stupidity was Bush being reelected in 2004 when so much of this B.S. was already known.

“But the depth and sustainability of the changes remain open to question.

By one revealing measure of security — whether people who fled their home have returned — the gains are still limited. About 20,000 Iraqis have gone back to their Baghdad homes, a fraction of the more than 4 million who fled nationwide, and the 1.4 million people in Baghdad who are still internally displaced, according to a recent Iraqi Red Crescent Society survey. ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world/middleeast/20surge.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Read the whole article.

**********************************************************

1) No, the metric has changed according to those in our government who kept moving the goalposts every time success became apparent. First it had to be political success, when that started to take shape even a bit it became security. Now that security is rapidly improving the aim is back to instant American-style democracy.

2) We have corruption in our own government across the board with over 200 years of practice behind us; the Iraqis are new to this game. 3) It sounds as if you just want to write them off and get out.

Comment by Minotaur — November 20, 2007 @ 10:07 am

I agree with #1 and partially with the #2 statement. However, since civilization in the Middle Eastern countries is far older than either the U.S. (or Europe for that matter) corruption is not something that they are “new too.) The #3 statement needs clarification. I assume you mean the Iraqi government. It could, however, mean writing off the current U.S. government. (The “object” of the last sentence is not clear). My own opinion is that they are both inefficient, incompetent and people are dying because of them, unnecessarily.

Comment by bilbobaggins — November 20, 2007 @ 9:49 am

Bilobaggins – I find the great majority of your comments very on-target and helpful. This one, however, I disagree with. Hyterra is not engaging in the debate on this string (or on some other previous ones either), but just doing a “troll patrol.” Not everyone that disagrees with either the way the string is presented on TP or our comments in response is a “troll.” Tolerance of diversity of opinion and a willingness to debate those differences is one of the hallmarks of a liberal or progressive. Automatically shutting people out because of disagreement is the opposite. There’s another regular poster who likes to attack other progressives, if they don’t agree completely with what he/she says.

I’ve never agreed completely with one thing Minotaur has posted, but I do find he brings “food for thought” to the table sometimes. This is comparison with some of the other real trolls we’ve had, like “Mr. P.”

This is a must read for all your interlects it explain everything thats going on , read from beginning to end The biggest Truth of US and Iran problems are the future Nuclear markets

http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=551761

Comment by Bush Cover Ups — November 20, 2007 @ 9:22 am

Very interesting article, and it makes sense of why the U.S. and the other U.N. Security Council members are so adamant about Iran giving up the fuel cycle, even though it is ALLOWABLE under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. That treaty also aimed for nuclear states to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons. Happened yet? Hardly. Every signatory is in violation of that treaty right now.

Comment by Exley — November 20, 2007 @ 12:00 pm

I figured that’s what you were going after. Both you and Lefty Patriot were practicing a relativism that’s really pretty pointless. One can play the “things are worse now — things were worse under Saddam” game all day. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what it was like under Saddam — what matters is if the Iraqis have a quality of life that’s acceptable now.

Yes, Saddam was a complete scumbag who tortured and murdered whose who posed a threat to his regime. It wasn’t all hunky-dory in Iraq when he was in power. Saddam Hussein was not a nice man. On the other hand, there were no bombings under Saddam (Lefty Patriot was correct on that one), one could walk in the streets without getting shot (unless you were a Saddam target), and the country was stable. Under Saddam, the Iraqis had electricity and cholera-free water.

The fact is, life is still pretty dismal for most Iraqis. There’s a lot of work left to do.

Yes, and like most simple outlooks, it’s flawed. In this case, because it completely ignores any progress being made. Of course anyone being killed or maimed is a horrible thing, but to ignore a drop of 50% in total bombs as well as a reduction in injury/deaths caused by those bombs because people are still being hurt/killed is flawed logic. While wanting the total number to continue to decrease, hopefully to 0, there is nothing wrong with noticing and accepting the progress that has been made over the past few months.

Comment by Squegeeboo — November 20, 2007 @ 11:53 am

You would know.

Comment by Squegeeboo — November 20, 2007 @ 11:53 am

It’s a pretty simple outlook. Bombings are bad. Whether it’s 10 or 900 or 1,800 or 2,700 IEDs per month is immaterial. Any number of improvised explosive devices killing and maiming innocent people is too many.

Comment by Squegeeboo — November 20, 2007 @ 11:53 am

it was wrong from the beginning, it’s wrong now. That’s the outlook, shared by most of the world. You few die-hard koolaid-swillers are the only ones defending the indefensible, and ignoring hte trashing of American and international law. You are fools and tools, that’s what’s clear.

Comment by Exley — November 20, 2007 @ 11:50 am

well, it’s nice of Exley and the other brainless motormouths to compare Bush and Saddam so favorably; it pretty much strengthens what I’ve been saying all along. Saddam was a known quantity, contained and controlled, and had eliminated all of his political enemies (with lots of Republican help, let’s not forget), and Iraq was indeed reasonably peaceful before Bush got his hard-on. You can believe the liars, Exley, or you can believe your own eyes, I don’t care.

What I am clearly saying is that Left Patriot is being disingenuous (to put it mildly) when he implies that Iraq under Saddam was some type of oasis of peace and enlightened rule before he was overthrown.